'Welcome' isn't quite the greeting you'd receive; it doesn't really apply to Tahneen Ihana. The people of this world don't have a need for such a word; visitors are a rarity and largely ignored, at least by the human race. And of the three races that 'share' T'Ihana, a human is what you want to meet. You'll never see one of the asthalei; they keep to themselves, undesirous for contact with any race but their own. So if your first acquaintance is unhuman, he or she will be rikahvrai. And you won't like that.

So you're better off by far with a human, who, if you're even noticed through the blare of music from surgically-attached headphones, will probably only nod and drop veils behind his eyes, not knowing not caring. Just don't ask questions - that's a sure way to be locked up by anyone with enough mind left to care. Watch the images flashing with lightspeed, listen to the ceaseless rumble of the endless cities, and wave as your free will slips quietly away.

You'll learn quickly that it's not safe to care on T'Ihana. No one's going to tell you outright, of course; but you'll feel the fear permeating everything. And you'll wonder how the humans can possibly be numb to the fact that there's something very clearly wrong with their society.

It's self-defense.

Because there's a war tearing Tahneen Ihana apart with slow precision, though there's no news-station to report on its progress; that sort of thing doesn't really work when you're trying to forget it even exists. It's not really the humans' war, anyway, though they've been drawn unwillingly into it.

If you're smart, you won't have forgotten that your race is not the only one on T'Ihana, though society's pressuring you to do just that. But it's really not safe to do so... because the other inhabitants of T'Ihana hold in their hands your life or death.

The war's been raging for time out of mind, long before the humans were ever aware. They shouldn't have been part of it at all - but unhuman though they may be, neither the asthalei nor the rikahvrai like throwing their lives away. They're nearly immortal under normal circumstances, and far more powerful than the human race will ever be... so why give up their own lives when they can use those of another people?

Maybe it's the humans' fault, too - after all, they didn't fight it. In fact, by the time they noticed, it was already too late.

There aren't many of either asthalei or rikahvrai, but it's enough. Because their agreement is this: Each of the rikahvrai can claim one human life each night.

They're quite happy to do just that. They love death and pain subconsciously, instinctively, after all; true children of the darkness. In their own forms, they're terrifying: razor-scaled, possessed of whiplike tails and far too many wings, spikes and fangs and blackness. They're not spoken of, but they could easily be called demons.

To attribute to the asthalei the characteristics of angels is less accurate. Snowy pale and white-winged and frigidly beautiful they may be, but on the whole they're no kinder to the humans than the rikahvrai. Each has the power to save one human life each night, true, but few actually do it for love of the human race. You can't be so cold and love anyone but yourself. The humans are merely pawns, and if they struggle to preserve the race, it is merely to spite to rikahvrai, to gain this victory. In this, maybe they're crueler than their enemies.

But your sole life must hinge on the hope that on the night the rikahvrai mark you, an angel also smiles upon you.

If you remember at all.

You know more now than any human on T'Ihana; you must understand why it isn't safe to love, why you can't trust anyone. Your neighbor could be a demon lurking in a borrowed body, after all; there's every chance that someone close to you will be gone tomorrow.

If you choose to retreat into the mindless present, who could blame you? This society, after all, provides oh so many ways to lose yourself in technology. You don't have to think until you die.

But you're not of this world, after all. And submitting to inevitable death is very hard if you have known and haven't yet forgotten what it is to live.

Your choice, then. And as long as you know you have this choice, you have not quite fallen to Tahneen Ihana.

Walk with those of T'Ihana.